Chapter 29 #2
It would also mean this motherfucker was not in my house, settling in next to me on a chair.
It would mean that Hannah was in school, that Clara was in kindergarten, both things I was dreading and looking forward to in equal measure.
It meant that our life was starting. That I might just be able to breathe.
But there was still a weight on my chest, a voice in my head that told me I was being selfish. That Hannah had a whole future ahead of her. That she had been tied down by selfish people her whole life and deserved to spread her wings, get to know herself.
I tried to quiet that voice. Some days it was louder than others.
“I know you don’t like me,” Jack said. As much as I didn’t like the guy, I was glad he jerked me out of the thoughts that had been harder and harder to silence.
“I don’t really know you,” I replied. “But from what I do know of you, from what I’ve seen, yeah, I don’t like you.”
It probably wasn’t fair to Hannah, speaking to her brother like that. Surely it went against whatever etiquette rules there were for conversing with your woman’s family.
I wasn’t practiced in that regard. Naomi didn’t have much family, and none who spoke to her or were worth speaking to, according to her.
And there had been no girlfriends after Naomi.
Before her, there were some high school girls, but interactions with their fathers were just being as polite and saying as few words as possible.
“You don’t mince words,” he remarked.
“I don’t,” I agreed.
The silence that descended might’ve been awkward for Jack. Not for me. I was happy in the silence that wasn’t really silence since I could hear the low hum of music from inside, the sounds of my girls. Hannah getting Clara ready for bed.
“Well, I guess if you don’t mince words, I shouldn’t either.” He cupped his hands, breathing into them in an attempt to warm them. “I like you, despite the fact that I am seriously worried you may punch me in the face at all times.”
He was joking, or at least I thought he was. But I had considered punching him in the face at least twice over the course of the day.
“I would never commit an act of violence in my home,” I told him. “Where my daughter sleeps. Where my woman sleeps. I would never subject them to that.”
Jack nodded, visibly swallowing. “Yeah. I’ve seen that. You’re a good father. A good man for my sister. I apologize for jumping to conclusions when I first arrived.”
The apology seemed genuine, yet I wasn’t in the mood to accept it.
“It’s a shame that for the rest of my life, I’ll carry something with me that I won’t ever be able to atone for.
But the truth is, I’ve only ever seen men hurt my sister.
” His eyes, the same shade as Hannah’s—though Hannah’s were flecked with hazel—roved over the twilight-cloaked backyard.
“My mother brought violence into our house. Since before we were young enough to understand. And when I was old enough, I was too weak to protect my sister.” He looked at the ground, features coated in shame.
“I stopped them from going into her room while she slept. I made sure that didn't happen."
I let out a soft exhale of relief. That had been a fear, one I’d carried with me since Hannah told me about her past. That someone had hurt her like that, and she hadn’t felt safe enough to tell me.
As a father, the mere thought of an adult damaging a child in that way sickened me.
It was shitty of me to blame a younger Jack—a child himself—for not doing more to help Hannah, but I did. Though I was grateful he protected her from scars that would never truly heal.
“By the time I left, Waylon was already sniffing around,” he continued.
“He was older than her. She was sixteen, and he was old enough to drink. It’s fucking disgusting now, to think of it.
But in our small town, it wasn’t outside the norm.
It’s not an excuse, but it’s when I told myself to permit myself to leave her.
I knew Waylon wanted her enough to protect her from harm.
I thought he loved her in a way that would keep her safe. ”
“No twenty-one-year-old man loves a sixteen-year-old girl in a way that keeps her safe,” I snarled at Jack, fury heating my blood.
I’d known Hannah married Waylon young, but I hadn’t understood that it was that young. That he was very likely her first.
I tasted bile as I realized that Hannah had jumped from an unstable home with dangerous men into an abusive marriage with someone much older than her.
And when she’d moved into my house, she hadn’t even been divorced. One older man to another.
“I know,” Jack admitted, head in his hands. “I know that. I saw it at the wedding. The amount he drank, the way he held on to her, tight enough to leave marks on her arms.”
He looked up at me. His pain might’ve affected me if I hadn’t been tumbling in my own inner turmoil.
“It was too late then,” he sighed. “She was married to him. Our relationship was already strained. She didn’t like my wife. My wife didn’t like her and—”
“You were too much of a coward to stand up to your wife and be there when your sister needed you most,” I interrupted, voice tight with rage. It was the third time I had to tamp down the urge to punch him in the face.
He flinched. At least he had the decency to do that.
“Yeah, that’s about right,” he agreed. “By the time I found out they’d broken up, she’d moved. Was in nursing school. I tried to keep up with her over the years. Cole, even though he’s mad as piss at me, kept me updated.”
Cole. The one man in Hannah’s life who had never let her down.
“She never dated,” Jack tapped his feet on the deck, in an attempt to keep himself warm, I guessed. “According to him. And he would know. He’s the only person Hannah tells everything to.” He looked at me sheepishly. “Though I bet that’s changed.”
It had. Or I thought it had. Hannah didn’t keep things from me. She told me things that hurt her, that shamed her. But she had carefully skirted around every conversation about past relationships.
Not that I was keen to speak about men having had their hands on my woman. Selfishly, I’d been content to not speak about it. I’d assumed a woman looking like Hannah would have had a couple of relationships between Waylon and me. Even if she had technically still been married.
I’d assumed that Hannah’s sexual nature could not have been laid dormant for so long.
But I’d made an ass out of myself with that assumption. And I’d fucked everything up.
“It’s not what I envisioned for her,” Jack told me, puffs of air coming from his mouth. He gestured to the background. “Small town, ready-made family before she even graduates college.”
My hackles went up and I fought to keep myself still. “You don’t have much of a right to envision anything for her,” I bit out. “Since you barely know who she is as an adult.”
Jack met my eyes in the dim light, met my fury with a bravery I hadn’t expected him to possess.
“I know,” he agreed. “I don’t have a right to do the protective big brother shit.
To pretend to know what’s best for her.” He rubbed his arms. “I remember who she was as a little girl. So full of hope. Excitement for leaving our small town. Seeing the world.” He tapped the side of the chair, and I entertained the thought of breaking his fingers, wondering if that would be preferable to what I was hearing right now.
“In my eyes, she went from our shitty childhood straight to a shitty marriage and then … here.” He held out his hands to the backyard, to me.
“Not that her life here is shitty,” he added quickly.
“Quite the opposite. It’s exactly what I would want for her.
What she probably wants. Safety. Security.
Family. All good things. I just wonder…” He trailed off.
I wanted to tear the arms of my chair off. “Just wonder … what?” I demanded.
He shrugged, as if he weren’t pulling at threads to unravel my entire fucking world. “I just wonder if she’s ever had time to consider what she really wants. Who she really is. To remember she was a little girl who talked about backpacking around Africa.”
Backpacking around Africa? Hannah had never mentioned that. Sure, it could’ve been because you wanted to do a lot of things when you were a kid, then you grew up, changed. Or it could’ve been that she couldn’t do that now, inside the life she had with me. Us.
Acid crawled up my throat like heartburn.
“I left my wife,” Jack informed me, unaware of the fucking volcano he’d awakened.
“It took me a long time to admit to myself how much damage I let her do to the people who mattered. I’m here trying to make amends, trying to be a good brother.
I’m under no illusions that I’m going to save her from anything—she’s done that herself.
I just want to … get to know her again. And since it seems that you’re going to be a permanent fixture in her life, I’d like to be able to visit without the death stares. ”
He smiled weakly.
“Can we make a peace treaty? For Hannah?”
He held out his hand. I was only half listening. Half there. Because I was acting on instinct, I shook his hand.
“You hurt Hannah again, you answer to me,” I barked. Even deep in my panic, I could make that threat.
“Wouldn’t have it any other way,” Jack replied, standing.
“Now I’m going to sacrifice my manhood by going inside and getting warm. Thank you for listening.”
I nodded curtly, no longer able to speak. Not now with that fucking voice roaring in my ear.
Thanks to Jack fucking Morgan.
HANNAH
Jack left without any wreckage in his wake, and I tried to believe there was none in my future. It helped that Beau was taking me on a date.
A real-life date. Early dinner. At the fanciest restaurant in town.